BUNCOMBE COUNTY, N.C. (WLOS) — A potential signing of an executive order to get rid of the U.S. Department of Education has some state and local educators frustrated.
Educators are not only concerned for their livelihoods but the future of North Carolina students.
The department is responsible for programs to help disabled and low-income students stay on track academically with other students, among others.
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The disabled and low-income student programs are not a part of the portions of the Education Department that’s protected by federal law.
If those programs went away in Buncombe County, Asheville City and Buncombe County Schools would lose a lot of money in that area.
“We stand to lose over $15 million to both school systems in those two areas,” Buncombe County Association of Educators President Shanna Peele said. “The services that they receive are a lifeline to make sure they can succeed in school.”
Peele is speaking not just as the President of the BCAE, but also as a special education teacher. She and other educators across North Carolina, fear that losing resources at the federal level could lead to making a space for money locally.
“Every federal resource that gets pulled needs to be supplemented somewhere else,” North Carolina Association of Educators Vice President Bryan Proffitt said. “There’s going to be cuts and impacts to make up for these losses. We’re just going to see devastating cuts that’ll impact our kids and our futures.”
Department Secretary Linda McMahon said, in her senate confirmation hearing last month, that programs like Pell Grants and Title 1 to benefit students in need would not be affected by the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate the department.
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In a message to staff, McMahon also said in part:
“My vision is aligned with the President’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children”
These potential cuts, along with Helene recovery, would be a funding blow to many WNC schools.
“I shouldn’t suffer because I move from one community that has resources to invest in public schools because of property taxes to another place that doesn’t have those resources,” Proffitt said. “It doesn’t matter what area code a kid lives in; they should have access to the best resources. There are some kinds of measures where it makes sense to have school-based or county-based flexibility. Whether we provide resources to have enough staff and resources to meet our kid’s needs should not be a question.”
“We can’t have cuts from the local and federal at the same time,” Peele said. “Our schools can’t afford it.”
Click here to see McMahon’s “Our Department’s Final Mission” that she wrote this week.
